4 ways to boost your digital fundraising in the new year

As we settle back into work this year, it’s a great time to reflect on the year that has been and get those new year work resolutions into practice. It can be daunting with where to start or where to put your precious time and resources, but here are 4 great ways I recommend to boost your digital fundraising;

1. Measure your digital activity

Do you have all the information you need at your fingertips to track your digital activity?

It may sound simple, but the old saying is true, ‘if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it’. Having relevant KPI’s that link to the objectives is fundamental to your digital success. Some tips around this:

Know your baseline. What results do you get before you launch a campaign? This is important so you can then measure the impact of your digital activity and where to spend your money.

Make your reporting visible – if it’s not sparking discussion and you can’t change from the report.. then ditch it (or at least change it). What is the point of tracking information if it is not being used? You have better things to be doing!

2. Identify your low hanging fruit and prioritise them

You may feel the pressure to ‘keep up with the Jones’’ online or overwhelmed with the number of opportunities online to raise money, but it is vital to know where the easy (and important) areas are. Often the biggest gains are from improving what you already have or are doing. A good question to ask is, ‘If we could only do one digital activity this quarter what would it be? Why?’

Some key areas to make sure you are prioritising are:

Landing pages: Optimising your landing pages should be high on your list. With so much time and money spend on crafting the perfect proposition, post, acquisition campaign etc, how much time are you dedicating to making sure your landing page is converting as many people as possible? You’ve already done the hard work to get someone on your page, why not make the most of that? Small improvements like simplifying the copy, having ‘shopping lists’ with imagery, a simple form, compelling copy, similar look and feel to your ads and AB testing can all can boost your results significantly!

Fundraising email program: If you already have a base of existing supporters, set up regular digital appeals. They can also support your offline activities, for example, your direct mail campaigns. Ensure you are asking for donations at times when supporters are looking to donate to causes that they feel passionate about like at Tax time and Christmas. Also, adding video in your email can boost your results significantly.

Google Grant – Ensure you have this set up and receive $10,000 media spend to use on search advertising each month. This is great to raise awareness for your charity and reach people who are in the mind frame of potentially donating or engaging with your charity. I would also recommend to have a paid search account with Google and make sure you are (at least) advertising around your key appeals.

3. Utilise Facebook as a key part of your digital fundraising

Facebook is an effective channel to reach new supporters and to engage your existing fans and supporters about your cause. Some tips to boosting this are:

Grow your supporter base cost effectively by setting up Facebook lead ads to acquire new supporters. This is really simple and easy for new supporters to sign up to your cause or campaign and doesn’t require you to build your own campaign landing page.

Utilise video (Facebook recommends short videos) to build audiences to remarketing to for a donation conversion. Also, test Facebook Live as a great tool to lift engagement with your fans and boost your fundraising campaign.

Create lookalike audiences from your best donors, and let Facebook find similar people to advertise to. This is great for acquiring new donors cost effectively.

4. Implement a digital supporter journey

Are you treating your supporters like the superheroes that they really are? Often charities struggle to implement digital supporter journeys, but I recommend to keep it simple. Some areas to focus on:

Make your initial donation receipt engaging. This is most likely the first piece of comms a new donor receives. First impression counts, right?

Have a dedicated journey for your new supporters, especially regular donors. Focus on the first 3 months when attrition is usually the highest.

Add SMS and ‘thank you’ calls into your journey mix. In a past charity role, we had a volunteer call new face to face recruited donors and thank them individually, this lowered attrition massively!

Use surveys to gather information to then personalise your emails.

Cross promote your other fundraising asks and channels (ie sign a petition, attend an event, volunteer, donate a cash gift for a specific cause, like us on Facebook etc)

About the Author:

Jeremy Bennett is the Owner and Chief Consultant of Bigfoot Fundraising. Bigfoot Fundraising is a boutique fundraising and marketing consultancy that helps not-for-profit organisations make a bigger impact, for a better world. If you’d like your digital fundraising to make a bigger impact, Jeremy would love to hear from you to discuss how he can help.